So when the discussion turns to “how much value/burden is a freaking person, when it comes down to it,” I am in fact a little biased. I also spent a year as a quadriplegic woman’s sorta “robot-helper,” since I was both able to lift a ninety pound woman and not terribly put off by wiping shit from someone’s ass, and she’s the chick who got Boston to add a little accessibility to its transit system way back in the day [by having another care assistant chain her to a trolley, bless both their hearts]. Her parents were told to just let her and her (similarly-abled) sister die quietly as babies instead of, y’know, taking them to the freaking doctor. So in my mind, I really do kind of associate deciding who-lives-who-dies on “what can’t the person do” with…uh…shittiness in every sense of the word.

{see: can’t tell my ass from a hole in the ground}

The hypotheticals weren’t annoying — I sort of enjoy tying my head in that kind of knot myself, and I really will think about them some more and possibly even answer them when I can give them my full attention.

OTOH I have had it seriously suggested to me that my son is a drag on a productive society and should therefore be euthanized by the state.

I am very sorry that you’ve had to endure that. :-(

Apologies if the hypotheticals were annoying. Just thinking “out loud”, is all.

Thanks for sharing your perspectives.

I don’t think I said anything at the time, because I was arguing on the other side of the issue from you, IIRC, and I didn’t want to go into the ways in which I agree with him (I don’t see humans as inherently special) and where I disagree with him (”drain” being a stupid term), and I thought it would have just made matters more complex and tugged the thread in a worse direction — but I was supporting you silently, and I’m sorry it happened.

OTOH I have had it seriously suggested to me that my son is a drag on a productive society and should therefore be euthanized by the state. In general I’m hyper-hypersensitive to “this person is more valuable than that one” arguments. And I realize that’s a really broad-brush and unfair way to characterize what you were saying about consciousness, and I apologize, it’s just that that’s the button that it pushed.

Yeah… I’m starting to see why people favor bodily integrity arguments.

Har har.

Maybe I’ll freeze some special little snowflakes first, but uh, probably not (more likely, I’ll sell a few to get those Good White Lady genes out there and pay off some medical bills - just as soon as I quit smoking, right?).

If you don’t mind continuing the conversation for a tick — I have an ignorant question, which I hope is not inherently offensive. Are there many disabled people out there with a level of consciousness less than newborns? I guess I’m thinking even Ashley, who seemed pretty impaired, was at a level quite a bit more sophisticated than that. But I may just not know what the hell I’m talking about.

the same people who are anti-choice also care the least about supporting people with disabilities, children, etc.

The fundawackos, as I seem to be calling them, yes. I know a number of pro-lifers who do care very much about those things, and who also actively support improvements in education and health-care access that would reduce the number of abortions among other benefits. Sadly, they seem to be very much in the minority in the US, and given the actual state of play I very much hear what you’re saying.

I want to thank you both, Kai and Mandolin, for answering my original question so well. As I said, I still can’t quite get to where you are… but now I can see it from here.

It helps when I realize that the same people who are anti-choice also cares the least about supporting people with disabilities, children, etc. IF we have a society that really values human life - and the work women do to reproduce it - such that health care is available to everyone who needs it, paid maternal leave is guaranteed, the elderly and the disabled are well taken care of, war isn’t waged unnecessarily, etc, I would be ok with sacrificing some bodily integrity for the common good, as long as it is fair (say mandatory blood donation for all healthy adults, organ donation upon death, plus restrictions on late term abortions). (I don’t speak for other women though.) Interestingly enough, Canada, which does seem to fit the “valuing human life” bill, has no restrictions on abortions.

But a fetus is not a person until at least halfway through pregnancy; before that point there’s (for me, anyway) no moral issue with ending the pregnancy, but after that things get (again, for me) much trickier. I think a pregnant woman in the normal course of events* has a responsibility to know this and to commit one way or the other before that point.

(I continue this just for mental exercise, not to be argumentative.) A purely hypothetical situation: by prenatal genetic testing at 15 weeks a fetus is found to need the biological father’s skin/blood/chunk of liver/what-have-you upon birth, or else will die. He agrees to donating it, and based on this promise the woman carries the pregnancy to term. Should there be a law holding this man to his promise/responsibility?

If a fetus is not a person before some point (say 20 weeks), but is one afterwards, this makes some situation almost paradoxical. Say a woman finds at 18 week pregnant that she carries a fetus with conditions incompatible with life outside the womb. If she aborted at 18 weeks, no person would have been created or harmed. If she carries to term, she would have created a person that faces certain death. So should the law mandate an abortion in this case?

This is one of the reasons why I don’t prefer to engage in discussions about when a fetus becomes a person in the context of abortion debate.

Almost. I get stopped dead in my tracks when I get to the point where a person (the advanced fetus) has no legal rights and is completely at the mercy of someone else’s judgment…

As would someone in need of an organ, or rare-type blood. They have rights, just not enough to trump the woman’s to her body. I think fetuses have legal rights. If a fetus can be safely removed alive from the woman carrying it (as safe or almost as safe as if she would abort it), I think the woman should not have the right to order it destroyed if she consents to having it removed. In other words, I think a fetus has a right to live, just not a right to use the woman’s body. Another example: suppose a certain baby must have its mother’s breast milk, or face serious health consequences including death (let’s say deadly allergic to any other alternative). Would it then be right to forbid the woman to undergo surgery that would impact her ability to make milk? A baby definitely is a person and has rights.

That’s fair.

It’s amazing how abortion gets tangled in so many starting assumptions… one almost doesn’t realize they’re even there.

While that makes sense, I have to tell you that this criterion, even if considered only as a contributing factor, really, really bothers me. I’m biased by having a severely disabled child.

That’s a very, very slippery ethical slope, and I don’t want to go there. Does a newborn have consciousness? How about a severely disabled person? Not going there.

I think it’s possible to view the lack of consciousness as a contributing factor without conceding that the condition is necessary and sufficient to make it ethical to euthanize someone.

i.e.

fetuses probably don’t have consciousness; women definitely do

probably not conscious fetuses inhabit the bodies of conscious women; newborns and disabled people never do

probably not conscious fetuses can directly threaten, through the act of continuing to live inside the bodies of definitely conscious women, their host’s life and/or health; newborns and disabled people do not directly threaten people’s lives and/or health through the act of living

[Lu]The difference between pregnancy and the kidney example is that she was perfectly free to get an abortion in the first or (some part of the) second trimester.

[Kai]You seem to be saying that there is a certain point beyond which she should not, by law, be able to change her mind. I am not aware that’s the case in organ donation.

AFAIK it’s not. But what I’m saying is that a person who needs an organ will continue to need one until they either get it or die, and their personhood and the moral dilemma involved don’t change unless they do die. But a fetus is not a person until at least halfway through pregnancy; before that point there’s (for me, anyway) no moral issue with ending the pregnancy, but after that things get (again, for me) much trickier. I think a pregnant woman in the normal course of events* has a responsibility to know this and to commit one way or the other before that point. (And, for that matter, I think a woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant or a man who doesn’t want to impregnate anyone has the responsibility to abstain from sex or use birth control, but I wouldn’t try to legislate that any more than I’d legislate daily flossing.)

[Mandolin]IIRC, I don’t think fetuses have consciousness as we define the term.

That’s a very, very slippery ethical slope, and I don’t want to go there. Does a newborn have consciousness? How about a severely disabled person? Not going there.

[Mandolin]When these two groups of innocents (women in harm’s way, viable fetuses) are opposed, I support the women.

Or, to put it another way, if for every highly disturbed (to say the least) woman who manages somehow to find a doctor to abort her 35-week baby a thousand women with health complications can make these very, very tough medical decisions without having to worry about unearthing a doctor or hospital board willing to face down Justice Kennedy, that’s a good trade.

I can almost get there. Almost. I get stopped dead in my tracks when I get to the point where a person (the advanced fetus) has no legal rights and is completely at the mercy of someone else’s judgment…

Hmm, this begins to sound familiar. But I still can’t quite get there. Walk, anyone?

*That of course leaves Mandolin’s friend out in the cold. (SIX MONTHS? Dear heaven. I can’t imagine what a shock that must have been.) I think someone, somewhere, in some rare circumstance always will be. I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic (YIKES), I just have no idea what to do with those cases. (I would imagine that she is indeed ambivalent.)

Recently in a challenge to the partial birth abortion ban brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Dr. Watson Bowes testified in support of the ban that he opposed all abortions unless the chance that a woman would die was greater than 50 percent.

Given that, we have a possibility for the law to be abused, forcing women to give birth to a fetus that is damaging their health (as others have pointed out, it’s scary to let the medical establishment in a misogynistic country decide how much maternal risk is acceptable). We also have a possibility of some minority of women deciding frivolously* to abort advanced fetuses.

When these two groups of innocents (women in harm’s way, viable fetuses) are opposed, I support the women.

(Emphasis mine.) Lu, I’m not lumping you with Justice Kennedy, but trying to say (albeit not very effectively) that if there is a law banning all abortions after (say) 20 weeks, with a life and health exception, someone like you (nice), OR someone like Justice Kennedy (not so much), may come to decide my case. And I worry that the hospitals and doctors will, after calculating the odds (90% vs 10%) and possible outcomes (jail time for doctor vs blind woman suing for damages), deny me an abortion. Maybe in a more women-friendly country (where Eric Keroack wouldn’t be in charge of family planning, for example) I wouldn’t be as worried.

Also ditto to not being able to decide if “medical unnecessary” is always “frivolous”.

The difference between pregnancy and the kidney example is that she was perfectly free to get an abortion in the first or (some part of the) second trimester.

You seem to be saying that there is a certain point beyond which she should not, by law, be able to change her mind. I am not aware that’s the case in organ donation. Even if by the donor flip-flopping the recipient misses another opportunity, and dies, the donor would still have broken no law. You and I may think they are a horrible person. But we would not advocate a law forcing doctors to stick to someone’s original promise to sustain another’s life regardless of how they feel later.

I think many believe that the pregnant woman’s responsibility to the fetus is greater than any other. While I respect that belief, I think codifying it into law is unfair.

Also, someone with medical knowledge correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the health risks of any method of separating woman from baby roughly the same at this point (again, we are assuming a normal pregnancy)?

I think this is the reason the “35 week, both healthy” abortion doesn’t exist in reality. Women in these situations and their doctors overwhelmingly (always?) decide on giving birth rather than abortion. And you and I are both happy about that. Why, then, do we need a ban?

You and Kai always err on the side of the woman’s bodily integrity, I err a bit more the other way. And because the difference is really pretty small, we end up arguing extreme cases.

Agreed. Having been raped probably fuels my position - I am quite adamant about the government not sanctioning someone forcing their will against me. And it seems that fetal rights is increasing used to justify such coercion. Be it abortion bans or the more prevalent forced C-sections.

Truth be told, Lu, If more people in power believe like you do, I’d probably be taking a walk this beautiful Sunday morning rather than agonizing over this whole abortion debate. It’s the “fundawackos”, as you say, who keep me up at night.